Tag: sheffield

When Hendo’s met Freddy

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Many of you will remember the DIY Biltong post from a few weeks ago.
Well, since then I have experimented with many different sorts of meat and many different blends of spices in an attempt to create the world’s best raw-meat based snack. And while I was getting there slowly, my efforts received a huge boost on my birthday last week with a gift of 3kg of Freddy Hirsch biltong spices.
That’s enough to make 75kg worth of biltong.
I’m going to be busy.

The only issue is that since anyone can go and buy spices from Freddy, anyone can make first class biltong. But I don’t want to be one of the crowd.
I want my biltong to stand out; I want it to have a personal touch.
And that’s where Henderson’s Relish comes in. This “spicy Yorkshire sauce” has been made in Sheffield (right next door to the hospital I was born in) since the late 19th century.
It is to my home town what biltong is to my adopted country.

And, much like when Harry met Sally, the results of Hendo’s meeting Freddy are mindblowing.
It’s South Yorkshire meets South Africa.
It’s a pint of Magnet with a Klippies chaser in the pub on the corner of Bramall Lane and Voortrekker Road.
It’s bluddy bakgat, dun’t tha’ know, china?

It’s very me.

Chasing the sun with Tony Christie

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Because of the timing of the flights on my recent trip up to Durban, coupled with the relative geographical positions of that city and Cape Town and with the addition of a pinch of the turning of the earth, I found myself chasing the sunrise east on the flight out and chasing the sunset back home on the flight back. Needless to say, our pursuit was rather fruitless last night and so we gave up when we reached Cape Town airport, but we tracked down the sunrise on Wednesday morning with no difficulty. It was almost as if it wanted to be caught.

And all the while, I was enjoying something very chilled on the iPod: Tony Christie’s Made in Sheffield, in which Christie covers songs written and previously performed by Sheffield artists and bands such as Richard Hawley, Arctic Monkeys, Pulp, Human League and others.
And while you can listen to Christie’s wonderful cover of The Only Ones Who Know via that link to  the album review above, here’s Alex Turner singing an (almost) equally relaxed version with Richard Hawley at the Union Chapel in Islington.

Christie’s gentle pub crooner/swing/jazz style didn’t seem wholly appropriate as we set off, but it soon became apparent that it was the perfect accompaniment for gazing out of the window at South Africa beneath me. And ironically, it probably prevented me from smashing the aggravating bloke sitting next to me in the face, South Yorkshire style.

Wendy go down

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After a dramatic last day in the Championship, the only game that really mattered – wednesday v Palace at Swillsboro’  – finished 2-2.
And that, as the BBC Football website videprinter confirms, means that Sheffield wednesday find themselves relegated to League One:

As a lifelong Sheffield United fan, I am celebrating (again) this evening. I was going to go the whole hog with the fizzy wine, but I think an understated Castle Milk Stout will do the trick.

And then some fizzy wine.

Snow-ta Photo

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I’m watching Tranmere v Wolves in the FA Cup (and currently Tranmere are all over the visitors like an aggressive gravy) so I’m giving you a snow-ta photo.
It’s like a quota photo, but with snow (see what I did there?).

This is one my Dad took on New Year’s Eve. Beautiful.
My parents arrived back home on 10th December from a 6 week tour of  Australia. It was 3°C in Sheffield that day and it hasn’t got that warm again since. The forecast until Friday gives a daily maximum of 0°C or below.

Happy days.